Hi friends,
I’ve been pretty ill this past week with some kind of seasonal virus that has hit me pretty hard - bed bound, fevers, not sleeping, all the usual super-lame things that conflict with my current and much appreciated identity as a healthy person. The worst part has been a bad cough, which has decimated my vocal chords. With my band we’re building up to recording an EP and regular gigging, so I’m keen to heal quickly. I ask for help.
In my fevered dreams I meet a spider. A villainous, cartoon character with hairy legs and a raspy voice who has moved into my lungs and is weaving a web of sticky mucus. His presence in my body is not welcome.
Why have you come?
To eat the insects that feed on the sadness in your lungs.
I try to explain that this mucusy web that he is building is making it hard to breathe, making me cough. He tells me I better stop attracting the insects or he’ll be back every time I let myself get a little run down. I sense there is something this spider needs to teach me. Like any good relationship, understanding the spider that wants to live in my lungs will take time.
My rational waking self knows there is not a physical spider in my lungs. But the idea that my illness has a deeper root, one that my psyche can create a mythic persona around to access a deeper intuition to my health - these are empowering thoughts. Mythic intuition is not the same thing as modern medicine. But at the very least, framing an illness as something I can relate to empowers my mind to play its significant role in the healing process. And hey, who am I to say that spider spirit living inside me ain’t real?
Plants & Kin 🌿
Hawthorn is one powerful plant. A pioneer species, hawthorn will thrive where most plants will not. She grows slowly, and gnarly, twisting and turning out of the ground in ways that make her look old and haggard in her prime. Though on Hawthorn these gnarling twists look charming and proud. Hawthorn reminds me that the lines, twists and bends that come from living life fully exposed at the edges are marks of real beauty.
Hawthorn is covered in thorns. She creates a strong boundary for herself and any small saplings that might grow nearby. Hawthorn has always been known to be protected by the fae, marking an entrance to the otherworld. Cutting a living hawthorn is not something many folk would recommend.
This plant is known best for her heart healing powers. She serves to dilate blood vessels, strengthen contraction of the heart muscle, improve the energy supply to heart cells, reduce high blood pressure, regulate irregular heartbeats, lower cholesterol levels and reduce inflammation. All of these actions make the heart's job easier.
I have a deep love for hawthorn. She was the first tree to really speak to me as an adult. After missing the seabuckthorn last week (and the elderberries before that) I made sure that I got a few berries. I’ve made a hawthorn vinegar by covering a jar of hawthorn berries in apple cider vinegar. I’ll give this a few weeks to brew before I use it in salad dressings or diluted in water as a tonic.
Rites & Practice ✨
Inspired by my new spider ally, my invitation this week is to play with the idea of giving a persona to a part of you that you’d like to connect with. This is a really common therapeutic practice. Gestalt based methods - including Internal Family Systems and Bill Plotkin’s Wild Mind (map) - make heavy use of variations on this technique to bring awareness to ways the self relates to the world. I understand this to be a gateway through which our modern minds can begin to comprehend shamanic and animist ways of knowing. This practice encourages us to know that ‘I’ am not one thing.
A common starting point is to consider an aspect of yourself that you don’t really like. Is there a part of you that’s bossy? Or insecure? Or feels ashamed about something? Or that gets annoyed all the time? Try giving that part of you a name, an identity. Or perhaps you have an ailment, injury or illness. You could explore creating an identity for this. Close your eyes and imagine yourself and this other part sitting by a fire or around a table. Open a conversation, like you would with an acquaintance. Ask them about themself. Why do they come? Why do they act the way they do? Are they trying to protect you from something? Do they have something to tell you? This is a slow and intimate process so give it time and space to unfold.
This work can go really deep, though if it is new to you it might feel pretty weird. It can help to get some support. You can find licensed therapists that are skilled in this kind of work to support you through the process. Try a database like BACP (search for Gestalt therapists) or the IFS Institute. You’ll find that after some practice with a therapist it’ll be easier to work the process yourself.
Land & Justice ✊
A new report from BiteBack found that the top 7 of the 10 food and drink companies globally are not on track to meet their own GHG reduction targets, and combined contribute more emissions than the entirety of global aviation. Earlier this year these same companies were reported to make the majority of their profits with ultra processed foods, which basically just kill us.
These companies are the food giants: Nestle, Unliever, PepsiCo, Coco-Cola, Kraft Heinz, Mars Inc, Mondelez International, Danone, Kellogg Company, Ferrero International SA. Each of these companies is a conglomerate of brands, you can start to get an idea of the scale from images like this one. Combined, these companies are responsible for most of the brands you see in a supermarket.
These brands have a superpower hold over society. They are responsible for 90% of TV food advertising. They create packaging specifically targeted at children. They have built their empires on land grabs, deforestation and exploiting workers around the world. They capitalise on our humanity, exploiting our evolutionary survival traits to desire salt, fat and sugar. And then we socially police each other.
While there are a handful of food companies actively hurting us, there are so many people and organisations working so hard to transform our food system into one in which everyone has sufficient access to affordable, culturally appropriate, nutritious food. If you’re looking for a career change, check out this site specifically for jobs in the good food sector.
Encounters 🔥
It is one big cosmic joke that the responsibility to eat well falls on us as communities and individuals, so we might as well make it joyful. One of the ways I like to think about eating well is to think about how much story is in my food. There is a story to the nettles I foraged in the park. There’s a story to the chard I grew with seeds from the seed swap. There’s a story behind the hummus I made from chickpeas I bought at Hodmedods. Sole of Discretion have an amazing story. Veg that you can find via the CSA Network, the Open Food Network and Ooooby is bursting with stories from farmers and growers working toward a quiet revolution.
If you have recommendations for great food projects around you, please do share them in the comments and sing their praises!